The War in
Afghanistan is the first major conflict of the 21st
Century. Though the origins of the war involve the
ongoing Afghan Civil War and the Soviet Invasion
and Occupation of the 1970s and 1980s, the current
war began in October, 2001 in response to the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United
States.

The War in
Afghanistan is the first major conflict of the 21st
Century. Though the origins of the war involve the
ongoing Afghan Civil War and the Soviet Invasion
and Occupation of the 1970s and 1980s, the current
war began in October, 2001 in response to the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United
States.

YouTube Video:
Heavily armed fighters launched two of the biggest
insurgent attacks in Afghanistan in years,
culminating early Tuesday with six suicide bombers
charging the second-largest U.S. base. (Aug. 19)

Danish forces in
Afghanistan

U.S. Special Forces
Combat the Taliban

CAUSES OF
CONFLICT:

Following the
Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the
fall of the Afghan Communist government in 1992, a
protracted civil war raged on between the various
factions of anti-Communist Afghan fighters, who
called themselves the Mujahadeen (See the
Afghan
Civil War).

In this realm of
chaos, some former Mujahadeen found a leader in
Mullah Mohammed Omar. A Mullah is an Islamic
religious leader. A former Mujahadeen fighter who
returned to his home village after the fall of the
Communist regime, this member of the Pashtun ethnic
group led a new armed group called the Taliban. The
word Taliban means "student," and many of the
original recruits to Omar's movement were Islamic
religious students. Other former Mujahadeen leaders
of Pashtun background joined with the Talibanas this new group sought to impose law and
order on the country. The particular law they
sought to impose was an extreme version of Islamic
law. Under Taliban-imposed law, women are not
allowed to work outside the home or attend school.
Men are expected to grow beards and attend
religious services regularly. Television is banned,
and religious minorities such as the Hindus were
required to wear some sort of identifying clothing.
Also, in 2001, the Taliban ordered the destruction
of all non-Islamic idols and statues in areas under
their control. They also attracted the support of
Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida
organization.

In 1994, the
Taliban attacked and defeated local warlords and
began to gather a reputation for order and military
success. Pakistan soon began supporting them,
partially as a means of establishing a stable,
friendly government in Kabul. The continual
fighting between the former Mujahadeen armies
caused waves of refugees to flood Pakistan's border
regions and interfered with Pakistani trade in the
region. In late 1994, the Taliban took control of
Kandahar, acquiring a large supply of modern
weapons, including fighter aircraft, tanks and
helicopters. In January of 1995, the Taliban
approached Kabul.

From that point
onward, until they seized Kabul in September, 1996,
the Taliban fought against several militias and
warlords, eventually defeating them all. Several
anti-Taliban leaders and their forces fled to the
northern part of the country to continue fighting
against the Taliban. One of these leaders, or
warlords, was Ahmed Shah Massoud.

From his loss of
Kabul until 1999, Ahmed Shah Massoud's forces
remained within artillery range of the capital
city, which he attacked regularly. After his
pullout from Kabul, Massoud also began receiving
military supplies from both Russia (now
non-Communist) and Iran, both of whom feared the
growing power of the Taliban. Russia has fought
Muslim rebels in its own Chechnya region and on
behalf of the government of Tajikistan. Moscow
feared the Taliban as a source of aid and support
for the rebels it has fought in Chechnya and
Tajikistan. Iran, dominated by Shiite Islamic
fundamentalists, was at odds with the Sunni Muslim
Taliban, largely over the treatment of the Afghan
Shiite minority called the Hazaris.

By 1997, Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government
of Afghanistan. Pakistan's role in the Taliban
success is controversial, as it is generally
believed that several Taliban military victories
are directly attributable to armed Pakistani
intervention.

After seizing
Mazar-i Sharif, the Taliban provoked the hostility
of the area's Shiite Hazari minority (who do not
meet the Taliban'sstrict religious
standards), and the warlord, General Malik, ended
his dalliance with the Taliban. The result was the
execution of at least 3,000 captured Taliban
soldiers by Malik and the Hazaris. In August, 1998,
the Taliban retook Mazar-i Sharif and summarily
massacred at least 2,000 Hazaris. Also, several
Iranian citizens, including diplomats, were killed,
nearly touching off an Iran-Taliban war. As this
crisis heightened, Iran massed nearly 250,000
troops on the Iran-Afghan border. Throughout the
years of the Taliban's ascendancy, Iran supplied
arms and military training to the "United
Front/Northern Alliance" forces in Northern
Afghanistan who were fighting the Taliban. The
Northern Alliance includes the Uzbek forces of
General Dostum, the Tajik troops of former
President Rabbani and the Shiite Hazaris led by
Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq.

In 1998, following
the terrorist bombings of American embassies in
Africa, the United States launched a cruise missile
attack on training camps belonging to bin Laden's
Al-Qaida organization in Afghanistan.

Through the Autumn
of 2001, theTaliban continued to pressure
the Northern Alliance, often with the aid of Osama
bin Laden and his Arab forces. On September 9,
2001, the Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah
Massoudwas mortally wounded in an
assassination attempt carried out by two Arab men
posing as journalists. This attack was the work of
bin Laden's organization as a possible prelude to
the airline
hijackings and terrorism
in the United States on September 11. The Northern
Allianceresponded to Massoud's killing with
an aerial attack on Kabul the night of September
11.

It is now known
that the killing of Massoud was coordinated with
the terror attacks on the United States which took
place on September 11. As the United States
assigned blame for the attacks on bin Laden and
al-Qaida, plans began to take the fight to al-Qaida
and its Taliban sponsors as the first phase of what
became known as the Global War on
Terror.

DESCRIPTION
OF
CONFLICT:

The War in
Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001 with allied
air strikes on Taliban and al-Qaida targets. On the
ground, American, British and other Allied special
forces troops worked with the Northern Alliance to
begin a military offensive to overthrow the
Taliban. This alliance between the Northern
Alliance and the Allies led to coordination between
Allied air attacks and ground attacks by the
Northern Alliance. These attacks led to the fall of
Kabul on Nov. 13, 2001, as the Taliban retreated
from most of northern Afghanistan.

As more Allied
troops entered the war and the Northern Alliance
forces fought their way southwards, the Taliban and
al-Qaida retreated toward the mountainous border
region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

From 2002 onward,
the Taliban focused on survival and on rebuilding
its forces. From 2005 to the present (winter 2007),
the Taliban has increased its attacks and is using
suicide bombers and other tactics from
the
Iraq War.

On February 27, 2007, while on a diplomatic trip
to Afghanistan, an apparent assassination attempt
was made by Taliban insurgents, who claimed that
Cheney was a target in the attack. A suicide bomber
blew up a checkpoint at Bagram Air Base outside of
Kabul, killing 20, including an American soldier.
Cheney was unhurt in the attack.

In the spring and summer of 2008, the violence
in Afghanistan claimed more coalition (foreign)
troops than died in the concurrent Iraq War. The
Taliban, enjoying strong bases in Pakistan, enjoyed
a resurgence and showed that it could launch large,
coordinated, and effective attacks on coalition and
Afghan forces. One of the deadliest attacks came on
French troops in mid-August, with a force of about
100 Taliban ambushing French forces near Kabul. Ten
French troops were killed, and 21 wounded. The same
day also saw an attack by a squad of suicide
bombers on an American base near the Pakistani
border.

The new Obama Administration called for
significantly increasing the size of the American
military presence in Afghanistan, and allies in
Europe are expecting President Obama to pressure
them to provide more troops as well.

In a significant change in direction, President
Obama came to an agreement with the government of
new Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to extend the
combat mission of U.S. troops well into the year
2016.